Chapter 17 - Yakov
She is pacing the kitchen when I walk back inside.
The full length of the tile and back, barefoot, wearing the same wrinkled leggings and sweatshirt she stood in out on the lawn.
Her dark hair is still a wild halo from sleep, and she’s muttering a stream of curses under her breath that would make a seasoned Bratva soldier blanch.
I halt in the doorway and watch her for a beat.
I can’t help it. Raya Volkov marched out into the freezing dawn, completely unhinged and bare-soled, and utterly dismantled my father’s lethal smear campaign using nothing but the naked truth and sheer, righteous fury.
She did it in front of her own firing squad of a family. And she did it for me.
I have spent my whole goddamn life being the person who stands alone in every single room, and I have zero clue what to do with the fact that she stepped into the light and took a bullet for me.
Nobody has ever stood in front of a gun for me.
Not once. Not in twenty-nine years. She has no earthly idea what that did to my chest, and I am emphatically not going to tell her.
If I do, her stubborn waking mind will find a way to analyze it and argue her way out of it.
Besides, what I am feeling right now is too massive, too violent and clear to trap inside words.
She suddenly spins around, her dark eyes flashing. “Well? What did they say?”
“Lunchtime tomorrow,” I tell her, my voice level. “You’re expected back at the Volkov estate by noon. If we don’t show up, they come back. And Matvei made it very clear that if his truck hits this driveway again, I personally receive a bullet through each kneecap before we even start negotiating.”
She stares at me, stunned, and then throws her hands up in the air. “You know they probably need a full-time babysitter more than I need an armed escort, right?”
A low, rough sound scratches at my throat. I almost laugh. The noise almost escapes before I forcefully clamp my jaw shut. She immediately snaps her glare back to me, pointing an accusing finger. “How can you find this funny right now? You were about to laugh.”
“I’m not finding it funny.”
“You were. I saw it. It almost happened.” She is still vibrating with leftover fury, but beneath the sparks, I can see the brutal adrenaline crash finally hitting her. Her chest is slowing down. Her shoulders are dropping by fractions of an inch.
She looks at the stove, watching the kettle she filled begin to whistle. Her hands are trembling against the counter. She needs a place to dump the rest of her nervous energy. I don’t say a word. I step into her space, gently guide her away from the stove, and take over brewing the coffee.
By the time I slide a heavy mug into her hands, the worst of the tremors have burned off. She sits at the kitchen table, lacing both of her hands around the ceramic warmth, tucking her bare feet up onto the chair. She looks exhausted, fierce, and utterly spectacular.
“What happens now, Yakov?” she asks quietly.
“Now we prepare,” I say, leaning against the counter.
“Tomorrow, I will take you home. I walk into the lion’s den, stand in front of your brothers, and hand Matvei everything I’ve spent a decade building—the information and the weapons.
Names, dates, financial trails enough to bury my father in his own paperwork or put him in the ground.
My contacts. My suppliers. Every gun in my yard, and every route that gets more of them into this country.
” I officially become a traitor to my own bloodline.
Tomorrow, I trade the Mykros name for a Volkov alliance. ”
She stays silent, staring deep into the black coffee. When she finally looks up at me, the defiant armor is gone, replaced by a reckless, heavy heat that makes my stomach tighten.
“Can we hide from tomorrow, for today?” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“We have until noon. I don’t want to talk about strategy, or asset sheets, or what my brothers are going to do to you.
I want to lock the front door, crawl into that bed, and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist for the next twenty-four hours. ”
I look at her—really look at her. I think about my father’s execution threats, and the half-finished data package waiting on my laptop.
I think about the massive target that will be painted on my back the second I set foot on Volkov soil.
And then I look at my wife, sitting at my table, demanding one final day inside our bubble.
“Okay, malysh,” I mutter, the word thick and absolute. “Let’s hide.”
She doesn’t wait. She sets her mug down with a soft click, slides out of the chair, and hooks her fingers into the waistband of my sweatpants, leading me out of the kitchen.
The day becomes ours in a way the weeks before it never could have been.
The laptop stays slammed shut. The burner phones are muted.
We drag the mattress into the sliver of sunlight cutting through the bedroom curtains, and we don’t leave it.
We spend the hours wrapped up in each other, eating whatever is left in the fridge straight out of the containers, sleeping in tangled shifts, and talking in the quiet spaces between.
I tell her stories about Yaroslav from before the house turned into a tomb.
She tells me about her sisters, her voice soft and rich with a domestic warmth I’ve never been allowed to touch.
I have spent my entire adult life calculating threat matrices and keeping one eye permanently locked on the exits. But today, my only view is Raya.
By the time the evening light bleeds into a deep, heavy shadow across the bedroom, the playful banter has faded. The ticking clock is too loud now.
She is lying across my chest, her fingers idly tracing the smooth, raised line of the pink scar on my shoulder. She isn’t performing the furious captive anymore. She isn’t fighting the pull.
“This is our last night in the bubble,” she whispers against my skin. It isn’t a complaint. It’s a hard, devastating fact laid between us.
“I know, malysh.”
“Tomorrow is going to be a lot.” She tilts her chin up, her dark eyes wide, serious, and unguarded in the dim room.
Whatever else she’s about to say, I don’t let her get there. I close the distance instead, my hand sliding into her hair, tilting her face up to mine.
“Not tonight,” I tell her. “Tonight, you’re not thinking about tomorrow at all.”
I twist my body, pinning her flat against the mattress. I watch as her pupils dilate with desire, the small hitch in her breathing giving away how much she wants it. I lean over and lick a slow, hot path across her lips as she parts them, taking my tongue hungrily into her mouth.
“You’re wearing too many clothes.” I kneel up, hooking my fingers into her leggings and panties, dragging them down the length of her legs.
She eagerly lifts her bottom and wiggles free, simultaneously pulling her T-shirt over her head to reveal her smooth, tanned skin and full breasts.
I lean down and take her nipple into my mouth, sucking deeply while my left hand captures the other, rolling the peak gently between my fingers.
The broken moans that fall from her mouth as she rocks her hips tell me she needs more. I snake my hand down below her waist, sliding my fingertips through her warm, slick folds, pushing a finger inside to map her heat.
“Fuck, baby. You were made for me.” I can’t help but groan against her skin. “I’m going to need to have a little taste before I fill you up.”
I dive straight down between her thighs and set to work.
Her sweet, slick coating laces my tongue and face while I reach up, finding her clit and working it in tight, rhythmic circles.
Her hands instantly bury into my hair, holding me firmly in place as she shamelessly rides my face.
I can feel the exact moment she’s ready to fracture.
I push two fingers deep inside her, and her walls violently clench around my knuckles as she relentlessly drives herself down, chasing her orgasm.
When she’s spent—lying there trying to catch her breath, chest heaving—I pull my sweatpants down, letting my cock spring free. Her eyes widen, her tongue involuntarily flicking out to lick her lips.
“Playtime’s over, baby. Open your legs.”
She may be all fire and fury outside, but in this bed, I see the way her eyes darken when my body blankets hers, and all pretense collapses.
There are no games left to play, no lines to pretend we haven’t already crossed.
She reaches for me, greedy and unashamed.
Her hands move up my spine, nails aggressively scraping my skin, her thighs bracketing my hips as her bare heels dig into the backs of my legs.
She tries to set the pace, but that’s not happening tonight.
The absolute last of my restraint finally snaps, and I let her feel the complete depth of my obsession.
I plant my left forearm firmly across her collarbones, anchoring her upper body flat against the mattress while looking her dead in the eye.
“Stay still, malysh, while your husband fucks you.”
I watch her eyes blow out as I drive hard into her body, each thrust brutal, deep, and absolute—each stroke a ruthless act of possession.
If there was ever the slightest doubt left in her as to who she belongs to, it is being completely undone right now.
She takes every ounce of me, wild and unfiltered, begging for more.
The world could end on the other side of the wall, and I wouldn’t hear it.
All I care about is the sound of her voice as I break her apart, and the way she looks at me—like I’m the only thing tethering her to this planet—when she finally lets go and shatters all over my cock.
It burns a hole straight through my fucking chest. Her freed hands tangle in my hair, pulling me down to kiss her, then violently yanking my mouth down to her throat.
She bares her neck for me, and I sink my teeth into the soft skin, sucking hard enough to leave a deep, bruising mark.
She pushes her hips up against mine, moaning directly into the pain.
She wants it. Wants to walk back into her family home tomorrow wearing my brand on her neck, so they know exactly what we are.
The thought sends me over the edge, and it clearly does her, too, as her body clenches tightly around me yet again, shuddering in a second wave.
She is trembling when I finally let her up for air. She tries to speak, tries to gasp out my name, but it comes out as a strangled whisper. The sight of her undone and glistening with sweat beneath me makes me want to ruin her all over again.
I roll her over onto her stomach, my hands gripping the curves of her ass.
I notch myself against her wet entrance and thrust back inside, taking her harder, deeper, as she repeatedly spasms and locks down around me.
I feel myself reaching the point of no return.
I fist a handful of her beautiful, silky hair, pulling her head back enough to make her gasp and clench again.
“Whose are you, Raya?” I growl, my hips driving into her in a savage, punishing rhythm, readying myself to crest and fall. “I’m going to fill you up, branding you from the inside out. Tell me who you fucking belong to.”
“Yours, Yakov... yours... please, fuck.”
That’s all it takes. Hearing her whisper my name has me roaring out my release, drowning her pussy with my heat until it’s running down her thighs.
This woman has me. I’m not ashamed to admit it.
If my father put a gun to my head right now and told me to choose, I would choose her.
I would choose this. Every. Fucking. Time.
We lie there afterward—hot, sweating, a heavy tangle of limbs in the sheets, the room thick and heavy with the scent of us.
She doesn’t slide away to her side of the mattress.
She stays crushed against my flank, her head tucked securely in the crook of my neck, her slow, even breaths warming my collarbone.
“Look at me, Raya.”
She shifts, looking up at me, and I place my fingers under her chin, tilting her face to meet my gaze.
“I will always look after you, no matter what the cost. Do you understand?”
She searches my eyes for what I’m offering, and after a second, she gives a slow, deliberate nod.
“Good girl.” I bend down to kiss her swollen lips. “Now get some rest.”
She tucks herself back into my arms, and within minutes, her breathing has evened out. I lie awake in the pitch black, my hand slowly combing through the silk of her hair, listening to the house settle.
Tomorrow, I give up my name. Tomorrow, I will go to her family and stand in a room full of men who probably want me dead, praying they accept my alliance before my father locates us.
It is a massive, life-altering gamble. It’s the right move, and I know it.
Even if I wish I could freeze the clock right here.